I have to agree with not changing anything "if its not boken, don't fix it", i don't come to this site to look at big pictures and flashy graphics, I am here to read the MacNews and to talk about macintosh's in the forums, the way the site is now i can do that just fine.<br><br>Oni<br><br>We got death star, We got death star

I'm an administrator over at MacNN Forums, so I thought I'd interject here to give you the lowdown. ;-)<br><br>We switched from UBB 5.x to UBB 6.x because Infopop had promised us that not only would we be offered additional functionality, the forums would run much faster. While we did end up with a bunch of new features (most of which I don't think anyone actually uses -- private messages and whatnot), the forums run insanely slow.<br><br>While UBB 6.x is perl-based, like MacMinute's version of WWWThreads (a PHP-based version is also available), the key difference is that while UBB 6.x is SUPPOSED to be mod_perl compliant*, it's actually not. Specifically, we enabled mod_perl, which sped up the forums very significantly, but the forum statistics files used to become corrupt several times daily, which caused the forum to appear as if there were only two or three threads in it. Some admin had to be sitting at the control panel all day rebuilding. No good, obviously ;-)<br><br>So we had to uninstall mod_perl, and now we basically need a new server to get up to speed, but due to a series of misadventures that I shan't waste your time with (quiet, Misha ;-)), that's been delayed a few times.<br><br>Anyway, my "official" recommendation is to stay far, far away from UBB 6.x. It's familiar, but the software is bad, and it's slow. This is an extremely readable forum, which is more than I can say for some other new Mac forums (like MacNET, for example), and most importantly, I can see a good member base forming. Small, yes, but the forums are so new.<br><br>So from someone who's been buried in the cgi-bin fighting UBB 6.x day in and day out, I strongly recommend against switching software. WWWThreads, though not that commonly used, looks to be working very well here.<br><br>cheers,<br>-gorgonzola.<br><br>* mod_perl is an Apache extension that allows the "perl" command to be run only once, when Apache is started, instead of having the perl command run each and every time a forum page is requested. mod_perl is a *huge* performance booster. I so wish we could use it! =)<br><br>--<br>gorgonzola @ MacNN

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p>So we had to uninstall mod_perl, and now we basically need a new server to get up to speed, but due to a series of misadventures that I shan't waste your time with (quiet, Misha ;-)), that's been delayed a few times.<br><p><hr></blockquote><p><br>heh..yeah..we have heard that several times. One reason for me switching from MacNN to any forums is because they kept saying "New server coming soon!" and still they have no new server. They even killed off Appleinsider.<br><br><br><br>

Whatever happened to vBB? MacNN experimented wit hit for an afternoon a few months back, and it totally cocked the place up. But it is pretty fast...and personally, when it comes down to UI, MacMinute isn't so great. Its fast...very fast, and for that I commend you, but its beige, I'm found it hard to find "reply", or "post a new topic" buttons when I first joined, and whatever happened to smilies?<br><br>vBB rocks. uBB etcetera aren't so good.And neither is WWWThreads. <br><br>Sorry...but if I were to lie to you, I would be doing everyone a disservice.<br><br>

Georgius, obviously you haven't looked around on the board before you posted that.<br><br>first...the beige..see that link at the top called Control Panel? Click on it..<br><br>Once there, click on the edit which corresponds to "Display preferences, number of shown threads, languages, colors...". <br><br>The 2nd thing you can change is "Which style sheet (skin) do you want to use for your display?" <br><br>Check it out...not TOO many choices, but choices nevertheless. Once you are done go to the bottom and choose Done.<br><br>Ok..next thing is the Reply/Post new topic buttons. Once you get used to them they get easier. Not sure if that's something Stan can move around or not (or would want to?).<br><br>As far as the smilies...sure you can't do it the simple way (:-) or :)) instead you have to do this [ smile ]. to find all the codes, go back up to the top and clicking on FAQ. That answers all your questions for you. <br><br>

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